Weird Things I Did Not Notice about Haruhi the First Two Times Through

So I was showing my brother Haruhi as part of my ongoing project to totally otaku-ize him and I noticed something. It was episodes 5 and 6 of Kyon order, and watching it for the third time with strange new eyes, I noticed that the direction was pretty far out there at times. There’s clever things like wide-angle shots (where Haruhi’s head is cut off at the top when she’s talking and therefore the focal character) and the crazy fisheye lens shots when Yuki is giving her verbal outpouring of doom. It wasn’t as cool as Shinbo could’ve done, but it was still interesting, and it gave me something new to focus on while watching.

It’s interesting to me because when I initially planned to rewatch Haruhi with my brother in a plot to warp and twist his mind, I saw it as a kind of chore–this was back when the second DVD had just come out, and the series was still fresh in my mind from the previous two viewings–and didn’t want myself to end up being a bitter jaded anime fan who whined and moaned about Haruhi being “overrated trash”. I’m in no danger of that, it looks like–the direction in Haruhi is unconventional enough to at least let me marvel at the breakage of directorial rules (which is about the extent of my directorial nerdery, as I am lacking training and therefore sufficient vocabulary to actually ANALYZE direction, so I’m probably a bit of a poser) and realize that Haruhi is definitely a well-done and entertaining show–I’m still laughing at the jokes, but I still laugh at the jokes in Airplane! even though I’ve seen the movie at least ten times by now.

Overall, I’m just happy that I’m once again not in danger of being Mister Jaded Elitist Snob. This can only be a Good Thing, I think.